Coil

Live at Cornucopea: Two South Bank Evenings with Julian Cope

Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London, UK

April 2, 2000

AMT #1 - surfaced April 15, 2017

The video file is straight from the master but has lossy audio, while attached is supplementary lossless audio.

The video isn't exactly all that great, but there are a couple of reasons for this. RileyELFuk attended and video-taped this portion of this gig, graciously sharing it with me (THANK YOU!). He remembers: “My first Coil gig. I took a video camera, but was worried that it may get taken from me, and I wanted to enjoy the gig and acid, so I filmed largely the backdrop and ceiling through the shoulders of those sat in front of me…They started as we entered the auditorium and headed to our seats, so I missed the beginning, especially as I was gauging whether I wanted to be obvious with the camera, and trying to see if it was getting any visuals beyond the back of the seat in front, with it sitting on my knee. All this with the acid kicking in…It didn't look awfully camera friendly in the festival hall. I'd seen staff talking to someone with an obvious SLR, and as I was 4 seats from the aisle, with an attendant stood there. I chose not to risk getting my camera taken off me, or somehow worse, getting kicked out…[I]t was an analogue camera from the 90's. I switched it to a slow shutter speed to increase the available light, which gives it that animated look…The switch to negative, and shutter speed adjustments, I did in camera at the time, as it added more detail, particularly in the smoke. You can always flip the negative in your editor…The one thing that does stand out as an additional reminder for me, is that you can hear certain frequencies causing sympathetic vibrations in both the auditorium, and my video camera. There's a short clip of it posted on You Tube…” That footage was uploaded November 12, 2010. “The truth is that it was barely filmed at all, I decided to just capture the audio, but the footage is interesting to watch, a strangely odd view of the venue, rather than the gig. The interference fringe of it, where the edge of the show met the empty space of the venue. I still wish I'd got some good footage though. I didn't actually attempt to record any others [gigs] sadly.”

1. Everything Keeps Dissolving (Cuts In) 0:00

2. Queens of the Circulating Library 4:43

3. Chasms 18:36

4. Sipping Birdsong Through Bedsprings 40:10

First gig of the new millennium. “Time Machines from the Heart of Darkness” phase, named after the live CD featuring this show, which was based on their studio albums Time Machines, released in January 1998, and Queens of the Circulating Library, released in April 2000. The band famously donned the fluffy white suits with hoodies during this phase, which were inspired by the outfits of jazz musician Sun Ra. Recollections from attendees indicate that the band were stony faced in concentration throughout. Every action from the band appeared carefully rehearsed. A few photos taken at the gig exist, but no video has circulated to prove these claims.

Debut performances of all songs, only performance of “Sipping Birdsong Through Bedsprings”

John Balance

Peter Christopherson

Thighpaulsandra

Simon Norris (Ossian Brown)

According to Phil Barrington in his book The Golden Age of Bloodsports: The Collected Words, Lyrics, and Performed Songs of Jhonn Balance, “Coil's first major live appearance for around 17 years was at Julian Cope's Cornucopea event at London's Royal Festival Hall, billed variously as ‘Coil Presents Time Machines,’ ‘Time Machines from the Heart of Darkness,’ and ‘The Industrial Use Of Semen Will Revolutionise The Human Race’ (the latter also apparently the proto-title of the ‘Circulating’ track). Balance appears with a massive black eye (the others apply makeup to their faces to match his beaten look). Jhonn's bruised eye is referred to only as a ‘drunken incident.’ Whether this was self-inflicted, a result of misadventure, or even a bar-room ‘disagreement at his local pub "The Captain's Cabin" in Weston Super-Mare (which he rarely visited) is not publicly known.”

John Balance made his live vocal debut at this gig, though he kept his vocals minimal.

Coil manipulated Dorothy Lewis’ (mother of Thighpaulsandra) vocals during both performances of “Queens of the Circulating Library.” John would variantly sing the same or similar lyrics as the samples, along with the additional line “The industrial use of semen will revolutionize the human race” and “The mothership and the fatherland,” the latter being the name of a song off of 1999’s Astral Disaster:

The line "It's in the trees, it's coming" is derived from the British occult horror film Night of the Demon (1957). John would recycle the lyric and some of its variants a few times later on, including on some performances of “Higher Beings Command” and the last performance of “Anarcadia: All Horned Animals.”

The only lyric to “Chasms” is John’s manipulated vocals singing “Every man and every woman is a star,” which is taken from Line 3, Chapter 1 of Liber AL vel Legis, or The Book of the Law, written in 1904 by Aleister Crowley under Thelema, his religion.

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Review of cocnert: http://www.compulsiononline.com/live_coil1.htm